


Companions

by zeldadestry



Category: East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Fairy Tale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:15:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't know about the curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Companions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lookslikelove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookslikelove/gifts).



On summer days they swam together in the cool lake and afterwards lay on the shore in the blazing sun until his fur dried all the way down to his skin. She brought a basket with her and filled it with berries from the laden branches they passed on their path towards the water. After their plunge she ate them until her lips and fingertips were stained purple. He laughed with sympathetic joy at her pleasure, he laughed as only a bear could, showing off all his monstrous teeth, his enormous tongue lolling from side to side. When the sun began to set he nudged her along, tickling the side of her waist with his nose and asking her to take her customary seat on his back. "Hold on tightly," he always reminded her, and she did, hugging her arms around his neck and squeezing her thighs against his flank as he galloped through the forest, faster and faster, the wind rushing past her ears, until they reached the castle. When she looked towards the horizon, almost all light was gone. Only a solitary stripe of orange remained of the sun's glow. "Hurry," the bear said, raising his paw to her back and gently pressing her forward. "Hurry!" She passed through the front door but when she turned around he had vanished.

One afternoon, as she walked beside him in the castle's rose garden, her hand rested on his back, stroking back and forth over the space between his shoulders. "I miss you in the night," she dared say. "Why may I only see you in the day?"

The bear came to a stop and sat on his haunches, facing her. He towered over her and she gazed up at his stern face. "There is another to keep you company in the dark. Do you not care for him?"

The man who visited her in the night, who kissed her and covered her body with his own, spoke kindly to her. "He has always been good to me, but it seems such a lonely fate to never look into his eyes, to never see or be seen by him."

The bear sighed. The warmth of his exhale floated over her skin and she leaned her body against him. She was just the right height so that when she rested her cheek against his chest she heard the thump of his heart and felt its drumbeat vibration. "Tomorrow it will be a year since I brought you here. I suppose you have counted the days?"

"I did," she admitted, "but only at first. I stopped a long time ago."

"Does that mean you have grown to be happy here?"

"Yes." Her hand slowly traced up and down the ridges of his ribs. His fur was soft here, on his tender underside.

"He loves you," the bear said, and his voice was so much deeper and more resonant than any man's. When he spoke it felt as though his words traveled all the way down her body, through the soles of her feet and back into the earth. I love you, she thought, not some faceless, nameless man without the bravery to walk with me by day. I love you, my friend, who protects me from every other beast in these forests. I feel safe in the man's arms because I know I am yours and you would let no harm, not so much as a scratch or a pinprick, befall me. "I hope you will learn to love him."

"I will, if you wish it." She clutched him closer than ever.


End file.
